FRUIT trees, bushes, canes and vines are today’s major must-haves and a stream of exciting varieties keep on fuelling the boom.

So if you have a keen cook, baker, preserver, healthy eater or botanical artist in the family, novel fruits are well worth growing and there are plenty to choose from.

You’ve heard of kiwi fruit but how about close cousins kiwi berries? Given our questionable summers they’re better than the real thing since they ripen more reliably and each plant produces hundreds of fruit.

As the name suggests each fruit is bite-sized and easy to eat since you don’t bother peeling it, you just pop it into your mouth whole as you do with grapes (kiwi berries have smooth green skins not russet furry coats).

If you have a keen cook, baker, preserver, healthy eater or botanical artist in the family, novel fruits are well worth growing and there are plenty to choose from.

The kiwi berry makes a handsome but fair-sized climbing plant so if you’ve only room for one choose the self-fertile Actinidia arguta Issai.

Mirabelle plums have been favourites in France for many centuries but they are quite a novelty for us. Think of a plum tree bearing smaller fruits that look more like crab apples.

Each tree carries large numbers and the fruit can be eaten raw or stewed for desserts, pies or jam and they are brilliant for home-made plum brandy. De Nancy is particularly good with its red flushed golden “plumlets” but they are all nice.

When it comes to grapes we have waited a long time for a reliable seedless dessert variety suitable for growing outdoors.

Now there are several. Rose Dream has claret-red grapes ripening from mid-August onwards, Blue Dream has fruit of a rich indigo blue and for traditionalists there’s also White Dream which has light green grapes. These last two ripen in September.

Grow in the sunniest corner against a wall that holds heat or in pots trained as standards for ease of management.

If you like novelties there is an array of unusually coloured soft fruit on offer. You’ll find pink blueberries (Pink Lemonade), pink redcurrants called rosecurrants or pinkcurrants (Rosa Sport and Gloire de Sablon). There are also hybrid fruit you may have never heard of, including a plum/apricot known as a pluot (Flavour Supreme) and an apricot/plum cross, which is sold as an aprium (Cot ’n’ Candy).

You can also find the fourberry, a selected form of golden currant, with large, round, black berries the size of your knuckles.

For anyone prepared to take a risk with the weather you can even buy an old French variety of pomegranate (Provence) which should fruit in a warm, sheltered corner of the patio, a conservatory or a greenhouse.

Even without fruit the terracotta flowers are a delight in June and if all goes well you can expect to be picking in the autumn.

For fruit lovers generally there are masses of novel fruits to try. An eastern European rhubarb Polish Raspberry, which reportedly has a far superior flavour, a Sharon fruit Fuyu that will ripen here and lemon-and-lime striped figs known as Panachee.

If your tastes turn to the Asian pear, white strawberries or the latest in trendy superfoods such as goji berry, aronia and honeyberry you’ll be pleased to know they are now available via catalogues.

The big seed firms such as Dobies, Suttons, Thompson & Morgan and Mr Fothergill’s have super selections but order fast as the sales season ends soon.